The Cloud Xpress family is specifically designed to meet the needs of cloud service providers, Internet content providers, Internet Exchange service providers, large enterprises, and other large-scale data center operators.
The Cloud Xpress family, which began shipping in December 2014, leverages Infinera's oPIC-500 optical engine, a metro-optimized photonic integrated circuit, to deliver DWDM data center interconnect services at up to 500 gigabits per second (Gb/s) in a compact, two-rack chassis design. The new 100 GbE Cloud Xpress family extends the hyperscale density, simplified operation, and low power consumption of the existing Cloud Xpress family, enabling operators to easily deploy and expand their networks. With the addition of this new platform, the Cloud Xpress family now supports 10 GbE, 40 GbE, and 100 GbE client interfaces to meet specific customer requirements.
Along with the introduction of the new Cloud Xpress family with 100 GbE, Infinera announces significant enhancements to the Cloud Xpress family including MACsec encryption for improved security, NETCONF and YANG support for Software Defined Networking (SDN) and ease of use, and LLDP discovery protocols that enable data center automation.
Infinera's Cloud Xpress continues to offer solutions that provide hyperscale density, simplified network operations, and low power consumption. Cloud Xpress delivers one terabit per second (Tb/s) of inbound and outbound capacity in just two rack units, with up to 500 Gb/s of capacity on the line side and a mix of 10 GbE, 40 GbE, and 100 GbE on the client interface side. At one watt per Gb/s, Cloud Xpress offers very low power consumption, enabling practical high rack density in real-world data center environments. Cloud Xpress's rack-and-stack form factor and software approach allows for easy integration with existing cloud provisioning systems using open SDN APIs.
The Cloud Xpress family now also offers several key features requested by large data center operators. NETCONF and YANG support enables seamless integration with data center automation and management systems; LLDP protocol for auto-discovery of adjacent switches and routers across the WAN supports efficient connectivity validation and troubleshooting; and MACsec provides end-to-end encryption to maintain data security. Together, these Cloud Xpress features enhance usability in data center environments.
By offering an application experience on devices similar to the server and storage infrastructure currently deployed in the cloud, Cloud Xpress enables seamless integration into existing operational processes offered by cloud service providers, Internet content providers, Internet Exchange service providers, and other large-scale data center operators, and the ability to rapidly deliver differentiated services by enabling an intelligent virtual bandwidth resource.
